What to Do When Your Teaching Isn't Going Well Rachel Beane

On the Cutting Edge Early Career Workshop, R. Beane, 2010

Assessing the Effectiveness of Our Teaching

Sometimes we wonder if our students are responding to our teaching in the way we hoped, or we might sense that a course isn’t meeting our – or our institution’s – expectations, but we aren’t sure why. In this session, we will introduce some methods for assessing the effectiveness of our teaching, offer some strategies for making changes, and discuss common questions.

Formative : These assessments provide us with evidence to improve our teaching during a course.

Daily check-in, minute-paper, muddiest point This feed back from students can provide a formative assessment of student understanding, confusion, and misconception. Questions are along the lines of “What was the most important concept you learned today?” “What is one question you have about...?” or “What was the muddiest point from today’s class?”  Overview of Classroom Assessment Techniques http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/teaching/assessment.html  Mosteller, F. "The 'Muddiest Point in the Lecture' as a Feedback Device." On Teaching and Learning: The Journal of the Harvard-Danforth Center, 1989, 3, 10-21.  Application of “Muddiest Point” http://www.cdio.org/files/mudcards.pdf

ConcepTests Quick multiple-choice questions that focus on a key learning goal and help gauge student understanding in the middle of a class.  http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/conceptests/index.html

Ongoing Learning Evaluation (OLÉ *) also called a Small Group Evaluation (SGE) This is a 20-30 minute facilitated student discussion done in the middle of the semester while the instructor is not present. The facilitator divides the class into groups; each group comes to consensus on questions such as 1) What supports your learning in this class? 2) What hinders your learning in this class? 3) What suggestion do you have for changes? After the discussion the facilitator presents a summary to the instructor. The group feedback is useful because it helps to focus on the class as a whole. There are several variations on this in practice, for example, Virginia Tech uses an Individual Feedback Form before the group feedback.  OLÉ – Ongoing Learning Evaluation. http://serc.carleton.edu/files/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer09/how_ongoing_learni ng_evaluatio.doc  Small Group Instructional Diagnosis – Virginia Tech’s formative mid-semester evaluations. http://www.cider.vt.edu/evaluations.html

DVD Recording of one or several classes can be a valuable opportunity to analyze our own teaching and discover how students see us when we teach. On the Cutting Edge Early Career Workshop, R. Beane, 2010

In-class observation This is an observation of a class in action where both the instructor and the students are present. The observer provides insights about how the instructor's goals appear to be met and about classroom dynamics. In order to customize the observation to the instructor's needs, there may be a pre-visit meeting to discuss the instructor's learning goals for the students and strategies for meeting those goals, as well as to communicate any areas on which the instructor would like the consultant to focus.  Class Visit Model - Rick Holmgren, Allegheny College http://resources.allegheny.edu/teaching/classvisitmodel.pdf

Mid-semester evaluations We can write our own mid-semester evaluation that will answer the questions we have about how the course is going and give us ideas on how to change it in the second half of the semester.

Student Reaction Our own direct observations of students in our course.

Teaching Journal Notes to ourselves, ideally written immediately after each class.

Summative: The following assessments are more summative than formative, although they may influence our teaching of future courses.

End of course evaluations aka student ratings or faculty evaluations.

Peer review Teaching material might be reviewed by a department of committee as part of a yearly, pre-tenure, or tenure review process, and might include materials such as syllabi, assignments, handouts, exams, laboratory exercises...

Teaching Portfolios A compilation of items that when considered together may be used to help us improve our teaching or to demonstrate our teaching to others.  Items to include in a teaching portfolio from “Tomorow’s Professor” http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings/13.html  The Teaching Portfolio: a handbook from Brown University http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Sheridan_Center/docs/teach_port.pdf

Tenure narrative An opportunity to describe your teaching strengths and to address weaknesses.  http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/earlycareer/tenure/narrative.html On the Cutting Edge Early Career Workshop, R. Beane, 2010

Discussions with other faculty As you seek talk with other faculty, you might realize that some of your concerns and questions may be shared by others. For example, “My student’s aren’t talking.” ...”My students are talking too much.” ...“Ughhh, how could my evaluations be so bad, when I work so hard.”... “How can I stop students from handing in their work late?”... ”I’m not excited about what I’m teaching, what should I do?”...”What can I do if students aren’t showing me respect?”...”What do I do if a project/assignment fails?”...”Can I redo a syllabus part way through a semester?” Here are some people with whom you might consider discussing your teaching:

 Teaching Consultant or University’s Teaching and Learning Center  Department Chair/Dean – may help directly or may refer you to someone  On-campus Peers – You might start a teaching discussion group on campus, or find a teaching partner. Chances are many of us have similar teaching issues even if we are not in the same discipline. And, sometimes it is enlightening to get teaching ideas from other disciplines.  Off-campus Peers - Talking through an idea with friend from grad school or someone you met at a workshop is sometimes helpful.  Former Advisors – They know you and may be able to give teaching suggestions that are a good fit for you personally.

Additional resources Cutting Edge Course Design Tutorial http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign/tutorial/index.html Earth and Mind: the Blog – Reflections on thinking and learning about the Earth. http://serc.carleton.edu/earthandmind/ ProfHacker Blog– tips, tutorials and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology. http://chronicle.com/blog/ProfHacker/27/ Survey of 12 Strategies to Measure Teaching Effectiveness by R. Berk. http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE8.pdf Note that this journal offers other articles on teaching as well. Teaching Resources for Earth System Scientists - http://www.dlese.org/ Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List by Rick Reis http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/index.shtml Tomorrow’s Professor Blog http://tomprofblog.mit.edu/ University of Michigan's teaching strategies and disciplinary resources http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings.html Note that other universities also have teaching centers that offer on-line resources.

* OLÉ was coined at Bowdoin College and is adapted from practices in “From SGID and GIFT to BBQ: Streamlining midterm student evaluations to improve teaching and learning”, by Margaret K. Snooks, Sue E. Neely, and Kathleen M. Williamson in POD Networks “To Improve the Academy: Resources for Faculty, Instructional, and Organizational Development,” Volume 22, Catherine M. Wehlburg, Editor. Anker Publishing Company, Inc., Bolton, Massachusetts.